The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [92]
Ayla made a face and shuddered with disgust. She hated them, and she had to resist an urge to chase off the ones below with her sling. Her attitude was irrational, but she couldn’t help her revulsion at the brown-spotted scavengers. To her they had no redeeming features. She was not nearly as offended by other scavengers, though they often smelled as bad.
From the vantage point of the ledge she saw a wolverine going after a share of the offal. The glutton resembled a bear cub with a long tail, but she knew they were more like weasels, and their musk glands were as noxious as a skunk’s. Wolverines were vicious scavengers. They would vandalize caves or open sites for no apparent reason. But they were scrappy, intelligent animals and absolutely fearless predators that would attack anything, even a giant deer, though they could content themselves with mice, birds, frogs, fish, or berries. Ayla had seen them drive off larger animals from their own kills. They were worthy of respect, and their unique frost-doffing fur was valuable.
She watched a pair of red kites take wing from their nest high in a tree across the stream, and fly rapidly into the sky. They spread long reddish wings and deeply forked tails and soared down to the rocky beach. Kites fed on carrion, but, like other raptors, they also preyed on small mammals and reptiles. The young woman wasn’t as familiar with carnivorous birds, but she knew the females were usually larger than the males, and they were beautiful to watch.
Ayla could tolerate the vulture, despite its ugly bald head and a smell as evil as its looks. Its hooked beak was sharp and strong, built for shearing and dismembering dead animals, but there was majesty to its movements. It was breathtaking to see one gliding and soaring so effortlessly, riding air currents with large wings, then, on spying food, plummeting to the ground and running toward the corpse with outstretched neck and wings half open.
The scavengers below were having a feast, even carrion crows were getting a share, and Ayla was delighted. With the stink of decaying corpses so near her cave, she could even abide the hated hyena. The faster they cleaned it up, the happier she would be. Suddenly she felt overpowered by the fulsome reek. She wanted a breath of air untainted by malodorous emanations.
“Whinney,” she called. The horse poked her head out of the cave at the sound of her name. “I’m going for a walk. Do you want to come with me?” The mare saw the beckoning signal and walked toward the woman, tossing her head.
They walked down the narrow path, gave the rocky beach and its noisome inhabitants a wide berth, and edged around the stone wall. The horse seemed to relax as they strolled along the fringe of brush that lined the small river, quietly contained within its normal banks again. The smell of death made her nervous, and her unreasoning fear of hyenas had a basis in early experience. They both enjoyed the freedom allowed by the sunny spring day after a long restricting winter, though the air still had a chilly dampness. It smelled fresher on the open meadow, too, and flying scavengers were not the only birds feasting, although other activities seemed more important.
Ayla slowed to watch a pair of great spotted woodpeckers, the male with a crimson crown, the female white, indulge in aerial displays, drum on a dead snag, and chase each other around trees. Ayla knew woodpeckers. They would hollow out the heart of an old tree and line the nest with wood chips. But once the six or so brown-spotted eggs were laid and incubated, and the young hatched and reared, the couple would go their separate ways again to search tree trunks within their territory for insects and make the woods resound with their harsh laughing call.
Not so the larks. Only during breeding season did the sociable flocks separate into pairs and the males behave like feisty gamecocks with former friends. Ayla heard the glorious song as a pair soared straight up. It was sung